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This individual has long been known as a bigger-than-life character. Clever and unemotional – and hardly ever declining to another brandy. During family gatherings, he is the person chatting about the newest uproar to catch up with a local MP, or amusing us with accounts of the notorious womanizing of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday for forty years.

Frequently, we would share the morning of Christmas Day with him and his family, then departing for our own celebrations. But, one Christmas, roughly a decade past, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he fell down the stairs, holding a drink in one hand, suitcase in the other, and broke his ribs. He was treated at the hospital and advised against air travel. Thus, he found himself back with us, making the best of it, but appearing more and more unwell.

As Time Passed

The hours went by, however, the stories were not coming in their typical fashion. He insisted he was fine but his condition seemed to contradict this. He tried to make it upstairs for a nap but found he could not; he tried, gingerly, to eat Christmas lunch, and did not manage.

So, before I’d so much as don any celebratory headwear, my mother and I made the choice to drive him to the emergency room.

The idea of calling for an ambulance crossed our minds, but what would the wait time be on Christmas Day?

A Deteriorating Condition

When we finally reached the hospital, his state had progressed from peaky to barely responsive. Fellow patients assisted us guide him to a ward, where the generic smell of hospital food and wind permeated the space.

Different though, was the spirit. People were making brave attempts at holiday cheer everywhere you looked, despite the underlying depressing and institutional feel; tinsel hung from drip stands and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on nightstands.

Positive medical attendants, who certainly would have chosen to be at home, were moving busily and using that lovely local expression so unique to the area: “duck”.

Heading Home for Leftovers

When visiting hours were over, we headed home to cold bread sauce and Christmas telly. We saw a lighthearted program on television, probably Agatha Christie, and took part in a more foolish pastime, such as Sheffield’s take on Monopoly.

It was already late, and snow was falling, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – had we missed Christmas?

The Aftermath and the Story

Even though he ultimately healed, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and later developed DVT. And, although that holiday is not my most cherished memory, it has gone down in family lore as “the Christmas I saved a life”.

Whether that’s strictly true, or a little bit of dramatic licence, is not for me to definitively say, but hearing it told each year certainly hasn’t hurt my ego. And, as our friend always says: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.